For those of you I have not met, my name is Lew Ciochetto. It is my distinct honor to speak to George's family and friends at this remembrance.
You might wonder how a sailor came to be working with a career Air Force patriot like George Harman, in the cornfields of Nebraska.
It seems that for many years I in the Navy and George in the Air Force worked similar aircraft programs supporting the President and the Secretary of Defense in assuring the security of our nation. With the creation of United States Strategic Command in 1992, here in Omaha, the Navy and Air Force were compelled to work together, and that's when I met George.
Back then I don't think I called him George. He was Mr. Harman to me although I am sure he probably preferred just plain George.
Very early in my Navy career I learned that you could find in any organization a few people that really made the organization run. These were quiet leaders who seemed to know everything and could get anything done. They were usually not the show horses, but the strong and silent workhorses and if you were smart, you would see that success was always around them. George was one of these leaders.
I first came to know George as an absolute wizard of communications technology and military operations. He worked best at the intersection of technology and people. He excelled at things that were usually very complex, highly classified and so very important to this country. Knowing both technology and people well, he could effortlessly translate between the two. He could make it all understandable, even to a Navy Pilot. He did it all with strong dedication and at every opportunity, with a smile.
I admired his ability to find humor even in the serious business we were in. I remember a time when I came into George's office and saw him laughing to himself. I asked him what was so funny. He said that he had overheard the General complaining that his garage door opener had gone bad. Even with new batteries, it still would not function properly.
George had figured out why the General's garage door would not work. It seems that the command had switched to a new aircraft communications frequency plan earlier in the week. George had figured out that the new military frequencies were too close to those used by the commercial garage door transmitters. Since the beginning of the week, the government had been jamming signals of every garage door in Bellevue. George was laughing because if he had not figured this out, by the end of the week there would not be a 9 volt battery left in the city.
I very much enjoyed this kindly wizard with a sense of humor.
There were times when I would come looking for him with my hair on fire over some issue and found him away at some meeting.
I would ask his officemates, "Where is Yoda?"
"Yoda?" they would ask with a puzzled look.
"You know George!" I would say.
"Oh YODA!"
The nickname stuck. Yoda, the small bald headed teacher of Jedi Knights in the Star Wars series was George to me. Soon his officemates were leaving small Yoda figurines around his desk, and one day he called me over to proudly display his new computer screen saver -- featuring a picture of the wrinkled Jedi Master.
When I heard George was ill, it was this good natured sense of humor we shared that I remembered. I prayed for him, tried to ignore how serious his illness was and set about to cheer him up.
On one of my visits, I told George that the doctor would probably not mind if he had just one beer and then brought him one that was a quart tall.
I offered him my Navy coffee cup as a portable bedpan.
I was going to sneak him in a cigar too, but Mary frowned.
Over time his condition worsened. Other friends and family let me know that he was growing fearful about a battery of medical tests he needed as doctors tried to find a way to heal him.
On the day he was scheduled for one of these tests I brought him a small river stone. The stone had the simple word Faith engraved upon it in small block letters.
As I came to the hospital that day I practiced in my head how I would use stone to jest with him and cheer him up. I would say "George, I heard you needed faith to get through these things, so I brought you some."
Before I got to deliver my lines though, a wheelchair and an aide appeared to take him away for the test. I quickly said my line and tried to hand him the stone, but George's complete attention was focused on the wheelchair in front of him and the waiting aide in white. Mary brought it to his attention again seeing that perhaps he did not hear me. As they wheeled away for the test, I wondered if my clowing around with George was appropriate or was of any help at all.
The next day there were messages on my machine. George's family was trying to reach me. When we finally found each other, George got on the phone to briefly say in a raspy voice "It worked." I did not know at first what he was talking about. His daughter explained that the raspy voice was not raspy at all, but broken by tears and emotion. He was talking about how faith had lifted him successfully through the tests. Mary told me later that he held on to the stone through the night and even asked her to tape it to his weakened hand so that he would not lose it.
George held on to that faith--and it would grow to help him the days to come for many other trials and uncertainties.
The phone call eventually came that George had taken a turn for the worse. The doctors were in agreement that the end was near. As I drove to the hospital on George's last day I said a quick rosary. It occurred to me that I did not know what to pray for. I decided that the prayers were just offered for George and that he would come to have what God willed for him.
As a quiet witness to George's last hours, I saw the most wonderful human displays from family and friends that I have even seen. He was surrounded by kind and loving people. He left this world with courage and dignity. I cannot imagine a better way to transition from this life to the next. As I saw his wife Mary attending to him in his final hours, with total devotion, I thought how fortunate George was to have found such a true love.
That day around sunset, George passed. His body released his spirit. It is my personal belief that he is now home among familiar spirits. He is strong, clean and whole and surrounded by love, light. He has only memories of kindness and love and humor. I know that when I see George again he will be one of the kind and quiet leaders, running the place.
I would like to thank the family for the honor of sharing these thoughts of George with you.
(Note: Lew Ciochetto rejoined George in 2004--they are both sorely missed by our AFCEA membership)